Rossano, Carmelina (2022) Use of levulinic acid to produce chemicals. [Tesi di dottorato]
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| Item Type: | Tesi di dottorato |
|---|---|
| Resource language: | English |
| Title: | Use of levulinic acid to produce chemicals |
| Creators: | Creators Email Rossano, Carmelina carmelina.rossano@unina.it |
| Date: | 14 January 2022 |
| Number of Pages: | 183 |
| Institution: | Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II |
| Department: | Scienze Chimiche |
| Dottorato: | Scienze chimiche |
| Ciclo di dottorato: | 33 |
| Coordinatore del Corso di dottorato: | nome email Lombardi, Angelina angelina.lombardi@unina.it |
| Tutor: | nome email Di Serio, Martino UNSPECIFIED |
| Date: | 14 January 2022 |
| Number of Pages: | 183 |
| Keywords: | esterification; kinetics; hydrogenation |
| Settori scientifico-disciplinari del MIUR: | Area 03 - Scienze chimiche > CHIM/04 - Chimica industriale |
| Date Deposited: | 24 Jan 2022 22:05 |
| Last Modified: | 07 Jun 2023 10:45 |
| URI: | http://www.fedoa.unina.it/id/eprint/13531 |
Collection description
The non-edible Biomass is an abundant and relatively cheap carbon source that can be quickly reintegrated and that is ethically accepted because they cannot be used as a food source. They represent the best candidate to supply both energy and non-fossil carbon for our industrial society and have an enormous potential since they can be transformed into useful platform chemicals through biotechnological or thermochemical conversion steps. Levulinic acid (LA) was highlighted as one of the most promising platform chemicals mainly obtained from acid hydrolysis of lignocellulosic biomass because its synthesis is easier respect to other possible building block derived from cellulose. However, the actual chemical processes limit an economically convenient production in commercial quantities. Levulinic acid esters (LAEs) or alkyl levulinates fall certainly within the most important derivatives of levulinic acid and represent strategic value-added chemicals from a biofuel-market perspective, as biofuel additives, replacing current chemicals synthetized from petrochemicals. At the present, ethyl levulinate (EL) is the most widely studied alkyl levulinate since it provides a better blending option with fuel likewise other higher alcohols (butyl levulinate). The big advantage of EL is that it is synthetized with ethanol, which is traditionally produced from renewable resources. In this thesis work, the use of heterogenous catalysts for esterification reaction, with a deep investigation on kinetic aspects to design and optimize industrial reactors, will be investigated. The influence of reaction parameters on the esterification reaction of Levulinic acid with different catalysts (Amberlyst-15, Amberlite IR120 and Dowex 50Wx8) is studied. Furthermore, a process intensification study from batch to continuous reactor for the ethyl levulinate synthesis with Amberlite IR120 as catalyst is reported. At least, the possibility to use a chromatographic reactor, to integrate reaction and separation stages regarding the esterification reaction is described. The second objective of this thesis project is to study the hydrogenation of levulinic acid, by which is possible to obtain γ-valerolactone, that is a very interesting solvent that can substitute the traditional solvents. About the hydrogenation reaction the experimental work done was devoted to elucidating the influence of catalyst acidity in γ-valerolactone yield, and a deeper analysis on the performances of SiO2/Nb2O5/RuO catalysts, prepared via sol-gel technique was conducted.
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